


The Abominable Fall

by Ozymanreis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, But minus one Gooseberry, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, Mind Palace, Re-imagining of the Falls scene from the Special, Sherlock Special, Spoilers, The Abominable Bride, The Reichenbach Fall, Violence, the reichenbach falls, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozymanreis/pseuds/Ozymanreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for The Abominable Bride.</p><p>The Falls scene, reimagined to be without that one awful part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Abominable Fall

“Too deep, Sherlock. Way too deep. Congratulations, you’ll be the first man in history to be buried in his own mind palace.” Moriarty stands at the path, the only exit off the Falls.

Sherlock looks around, barely able to hear his nemesis over the rush of the waterfall. The rock is roughly carved into a crescent around them, slippery and gleaming. They’d done this before, on the rooftop. But this is too much. He gestures out, almost unable to believe it. “The setting’s a shade melodramatic, don’t you think?” _And I’m the drama queen…_ he thinks, almost rolling his eyes before remembering the entire scene is still entirely in his head. _Any second now, if possible, someone wake me._

“For you and me?” The professor gives a languid look around, enjoying _every_ moment of it. “Not at all.”

Sherlock wants to wake up. _Because there is only one way this can end_.

And he doesn’t want it to.

He breathes in, trying to summon what courage he has left. “What are you?”

“You know what I am. I’m Moriarty. The Napoleon of crime.” The words aren’t real. He says them, of course, but he’s mocking Sherlock’s description of him.

“Moriarty’s dead,” the detective points out, trying to fight with him. To distract, as Jim always does for him.

“Not in your mind. I’ll never be dead there. You once called you brain a hard drive. Well say hello to the _virus_.” Jim steps forward, slowly making his way towards Sherlock, the latter’s eyes raking over his body. “This is how we end, you and I. Always here. Always together.”

“You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I concede it may even be the equal of my own.” He’s already lost. He’s fallen. Given up his will to Jim, as only the professor can make him, nearing him, needing to be in his orbit.

“I’m touched. I’m honored.” They meet, mere inches from each other. Either could push the other, the glistening stone beneath them ensuring that the first to act would win.

“But when it comes to the matter of unarmed combat on the edge of a precipice… You’re going in the water.” Sherlock smiles, trying to counter. He wants to stop this all, scare him. To become him, taking the same tactic he used years ago, whispering, “Short arse.”

Jim wrinkles his nose, slightly offended, and Sherlock already knows the time for words has passed. He lurches forward, hissing as he strikes Sherlock’s neck, sending the detective falling backward against the stone wall, hat falling off, barely having time to land before another strike hits him.

There’s a scuffle; Sherlock feels his adrenaline spike, delivering a punch back, catching Moriarty off guard, kicking him over, but does not advance.

Jim is swept back to the ground, but recovers quickly, getting back up, “Oh you think you’re so big and strong, Sherlock? Not with me.” He attacks again.

Sherlock tries to defend, but the professor proves swifter and more spry than initially calculated, blocking with his shoulder. For his troubles, the detective is punched again, pushed over, head enough off the cliff face that the dribbling of the falls is soaking his hair.

“ _I am your weakness!_ ” Jim shouts over the water ringing in Sherlock’s ears, upon him now. “ _I keep you down!_ ” A kick. “ _Every time you stumble, every time you fail!_ ” He gets on one knee to say it in his ear, but quickly retreats back to the high ground.

“ _When you’re weak!_ ” Jim continues, kicking his chest. “ _I-_ ” Kick. “ _Am-_ ” Kick. “ _There!_ ” Jim comes back down, grabbing Sherlock by the collar, the detective groaning in pain. He can’t think. They’re both two flaming balls of anger, red, orange, yellow fighting in the dead of the night, trying to be extinguished by each other, the falls, the rocks. So many ways to go, but it must be to each other.

Sherlock flails, almost unable to control it, to suppress his will to live.

“No, don’t try to fight it. _Lie back and lose!_ ” Jim drags him back up, fists tight on the fabric. He throws him off-balance, as Sherlock had done to him once. _You’re insane._

“Shall we go over together? It has to be together, doesn’t it? That’s the end! It’s always just you and me!”

_You’re just getting that now?_

Sherlock sees face, _really_ sees it, up close, at his mercy, faintly glowing in the reflected moonlight. They are anger.

They are darkness, and burning bodies of light, primed to burst. To spill out their negative feelings, creating a cosmic void. Two great forces canceling out violently, taking a chunk of the world with them.

_This has to stop._

“ _I loved you!_ ” The shout is sudden, primal, and comes from so deep in Sherlock’s diaphragm that Jim freezes, looking as if he’d been punched. Everything freezes.

Sherlock pants hard, the waterfall is stopped dead. Droplets hang in midair.

“What…?” Jim’s voice is barely above a whisper, soft now. The bitterness and anger had evaporated just as the validity of illusion had.

“I loved you,” Sherlock repeats, calm as the water now, easing them both back into proper footing. “You were everything. That I both wanted and needed. I loved you.”

The professor lets himself be moved, tongue flashing as he quickly licking his lips, mouth quite dry. “‘Loved?’” The word echoes between them, across the dead stillness of the Falls, the past tense as painful as the admission itself.

“You’re dead.” Sherlock swallows, blinking back tears. “You have been for years.” He shakes his head, trying to stop their inevitable eye contact. But their gazes meet, and he’s instantly glued. “And every day since I returned from Serbia, you’ve been ruining me. My life.”

“No, Sherlock…” Jim’s voice cracks slightly, body trembling. “I can… I don’t have to.”

“Yes. You _have_ to.” Sherlock sighs, “It’s all you can be now. You died, you are the past. I _cling_ to you, I… I see you. The first time I relapsed after your death. I saw you. Then when I was dying. And then the plane, _now_. You understand, don’t you?”

“You’ve become an addict again.”

“But not for the drugs.” Sherlock reaches out, fingers lightly caressing Jim’s stubble, then palm on his jaw, thumb running over his cheekbone.

“For me.”

“It’s over, Jim. All of it.” Sherlock is somber, expression soft, but fading. Bravery, emotionlessness, trying to take over.

“Sherlock, wait…” Jim’s hand clasps over the touch, eyes round and silently begging. “Are you sure?”

“I am.” He’s not. Has has to be, but it’s impossible. His head, his precious _logic_ screams that the fly must be plucked out of the ointment. The cracked lens must be replaced.

But his heart is fond of the misplaced insect. Thinks the damaged lens is charming. Because his heart is the _problem_. He’s hidden this bit of Moriarty away, in there for so long, that he’s _become_ the face of it all. “You aren’t just Moriarty anymore. You are pain. You _are_ weakness. You are… every emotion, good and bad.”

“They’re all bad,” Jim murmurs.

“Only proves my point further.”

“Then…” Jim closes his eyes, nodding in acceptance. “Then yes. I’d wager it’s time.”

Sherlock holds out his left hand. Slowly, Jim lets go of the other, taking it, a bolt of pain surging between them as their eyes lock once more. “Thank you, Sherlock Holmes.”

For the last time.

Sherlock leans in, hand still on Jim’s face, pressing their lips together softly. It’s wet and tastes like salt, dirt and blood, but it is perfect. More than any hit of heroin has ever been. “Thank you, James Moriarty.”

He pushes him over, and watches until his outline fades.

The water resumes falling.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Several Months later**

 

“John, can you bring me my mobile?” Sherlock asks, perched over his microscope, dressed in silken pajamas and his ratty dressing gown.

John had been sitting in the chair opposite the Sherlock, talking about the latest case. However, the detective’s capacity for listening seemed to be as unstable as his ability to notice when humans left earshot.

To Watson’s credit, he seems to be beyond getting offended by his friend’s carelessness. “Yeah… where is it?”

“Table.” Sherlock gestures to the clutter of newspapers and coffee mugs. “Can’t you see it?”

Rolling his eyes, John gets up, fishing through the muck. But even after a full three minutes of combing the small space, he can’t find it. “Err… are you _sure?_ ” It wasn’t out of character for Sherlock to leave something in the wrong place, simply _expecting_ it to be where he needed it.

“Yes, of course.” Sherlock sighs, finally looking up. “See?” He points out, scooping up a black rectangle mere inches from his reach, beginning a text. “Right here.”

For a moment, John can’t understand why he hadn’t seen it, if it were really right in front of him the whole time. It just looks _wrong_ , though he’s tipped off to the answer by what _isn’t_ there, rather than what is. “Sherlock… what is that?”

“It’s a phone.” His friend replies dully, sending the message.

“Yeah, it’s an _Android_ phone.” He reaches forward, plucking it out of Sherlock’s spindly fingers. “You had an iPhone. At least until recently.”

“And now I don’t. People get new phones.”

“Well… there’s more to deduce from this.” The doctor flips it around in his hand, “It’s an HTC. Incredible S, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Since when are you so knowledgable on old phones?”

“It says it on the screen, but- yes, _old_. This is from 2011, they don’t sell these anymore, meaning…” John’s eyebrows wrinkle. “Who did you take this from?”

Sherlock goes back to his slides, eyes staring down the glass, absently holding out his hand for the mobile back. “No one. Found it.”

“You actually downgraded from your newer iPhone for _this?_ ” John shakes it in the air incredulously. “I don’t believe it. It’s someone else’s.”

“It was a gift, then.” Sherlock snatches it back, stuffing it in his robe’s pocket.

“Hold on…” John pulls out his own phone, selecting Sherlock’s name from his speed dial, trying to confirm a theory.

 _Ah-ah-ah-ah Stayin’ Aliiiiiiveeee_ …

Sherlock’s hand flies into his pocket, silencing the muffled song clip, but the damage is done.

“Sherlock!” The dots connect in John’s head. “I can’t- _why?_ ” The question of “how” also arises, but isn’t nearly as important.

“It’s fine, John.” Sherlock replies evenly, smirk obscured by the microscope. “A sentimental totem. Nothing more.”


End file.
